Bubala Opens Biggest Location Yet in Covent Garden This September
Bubala opens its biggest London restaurant in Covent Garden this September, with 122 covers and a set menu reduced to £39. Read the full story here.
Prajakta Sanjay Warwadkar 
LONDON, May 27, 2026 — Bubala, the Middle Eastern vegetarian restaurant that has built one of London's most loyal plant-based followings since opening in Spitalfields in 2019, will open its fourth and largest location in Covent Garden this September, occupying a Grade II-listed building on the corner of Garrick Street and Floral Street and offering 122 covers across three distinct dining areas.
The new site, at 14 Garrick Street WC2E 9BJ, is currently home to Lima Cantina and sits in the heart of London's Theatreland, a high-footfall location that gives Bubala direct access to the pre- and post-theatre dining market as well as the broader Covent Garden lunchtime and evening crowd.
Restaurateur Marc Summers has also announced a near-20 percent reduction in the price of the signature Bubala Knows Best set menu, bringing it down from £46 to £39 per person at the new location, a deliberate response to the continued financial pressure on London diners and hospitality operators alike.
Bubala Covent Garden's Layout Across Three Dining Areas
The Covent Garden restaurant divides its 122-cover capacity across three spaces. A ground floor dining room seats 60 guests, with a further 32-cover room situated on the lower floor. Thirty alfresco seats overlooking Floral Street complete the venue — outdoor dining space that positions Bubala to capitalise on London's summer season from its first weeks of trading in September.
The three-area structure makes Bubala's fourth location meaningfully larger than any of its predecessors and gives the restaurant the capacity to serve a significantly higher volume of covers while retaining the shared-plates format that has defined the brand's dining experience across all its locations.
The Menu at Bubala Covent Garden
The à la carte menu at the Covent Garden site carries forward the dishes that established Bubala's reputation across its Spitalfields, Soho, and King's Cross restaurants. Halloumi with chamomile and fennel honey and crispy confit latkes with toum, a traditional Lebanese whipped garlic sauce, both return as menu anchors.
The brown butter houmous and mushroom kebabs that became widely discussed dishes at the original Spitalfields location have been central to Bubala's brand identity since the beginning and are expected to feature in the Covent Garden offering alongside the full Bubala Knows Best set menu at its new £39 price point.
The Covent Garden site will also introduce a regularly changing programme of seasonal specials designed to reflect what is available in the kitchen's supply chain at each point in the year. Spring specials include wild garlic and asparagus börek, a stuffed spiral of thin, flaky dough. Late summer brings whole grilled baby corn with pilpelchuma chilli paste butter, and winter will feature slow-cooked beetroot and feta pastilla. The rotating specials format gives the restaurant an ongoing reason for regular guests to return across seasons.
Drinks Programme at Bubala Covent Garden
The wine list at the new location draws from producers across Europe and the Middle East, consistent with Bubala's approach of sourcing wines that share a geographic and cultural thread with the food. The cocktail programme has been built around ingredients already in active use in the kitchen, a format that creates a direct connection between the bar and the food menu rather than treating the two as separate operations.
Bubala's Growth Across London Since 2019
Bubala opened its original restaurant in Spitalfields in 2019 under Marc Summers, building a following for its Levantine vegetarian cooking at a time when plant-based dining in London was shifting from niche to mainstream. The restaurant expanded to Soho and subsequently to King's Cross, with each opening adding to the brand's profile while the core menu of rich, spiced, vegetable-led sharing plates remained consistent.
The Covent Garden opening represents the fourth site in seven years and the first that deliberately targets a significantly larger cover count than any of its predecessors. The combination of a high-profile central London location, a reduced set menu price, and alfresco seating positions the restaurant to attract both existing Bubala regulars and a broader tourist and theatre audience that Covent Garden consistently delivers.
"Bubala Covent Garden will also offer a selection of regularly changing seasonal specials," the restaurant confirmed, framing the new site as a development of the brand rather than a direct replica of existing locations.
Bubala Covent Garden opens in September 2026 at 14 Garrick Street, London WC2E 9BJ. Reservations and walk-ins will both be accepted from opening. An exact date within the month has not yet been confirmed.
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